NEW YORK ALOFT

NEW YORK ALOFT; An Angel of the Morning Helps Rescue a New Crop of Immigrants

By SAM KNIGHT

Published: April 11, 2004

KELLIE QUIÑONES was on patrol at 5:30 the other morning, a small figure in a red coat. Clutching binoculars, she darted among the street sweepers, porters and late-night construction crews of the financial district, looking for migrating birds that had crashed in the night.

''This is good!'' she exclaimed at one point, nosing through the ornamental corporate hedges along Wall Street where dazed songbirds go to die. ''We're not finding any. But then you think, well, this could be bad too. Did someone get here before me?''

Ms. Quiñones, 42, is that rare species, a bird-watcher who doesn't want to see any birds. As a volunteer for the New York City Audubon Society, she has made it her mission to raise awareness of the chronic problem of birds' crashing into the city's millions of glass windows, to save what wounded birds she can find and record the deaths of the less fortunate.

Scientists estimate that at least 100 million birds die from striking manmade structures in the United States each year. Since the Audubon patrol started in New York in 1997, about 3,000 birds have been found, but so few volunteers have been on patrol, that number is believed to be a small percentage of the total.

''Next to habitat destruction, this is causing the greatest attrition of wild birds in America,'' said Daniel Klem Jr., a biology professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., who has studied bird impacts for more than 30 years.

With the spring migration, which started in mid-March and continues into next month, this is one of Ms. Quiñones's two peak seasons. Birds, which are unable to see glass, crash into buildings year round, but impacts increase during the spring and fall migrations, when tens of millions of birds crisscross the nation, flying at night.

Trying to navigate by the stars, birds are thought to become confused, by the bright lights of cities and radio towers, especially in bad weather. Some circle the lights until they are exhausted; others see trees inside shiny glass lobbies and try to land in them, crashing into the glass on the way.

''I've seen them hitting up there and falling down here and dying in my hands,'' Ms. Quiñones said as she approached the glass expanse of the World Financial Center, where she works as a secretary for Merrill Lynch and where migrating common yellowthroats and ovenbirds smack into the windows as they try to reach the palm trees in the soaring atrium.

During the worst periods, Ms. Quiñones finds 10 or 12 dead or dying birds on her weekly patrol. The Audubon Society sends dead birds to the United States Geological Survey's wildlife research center in Patuxent, Md. If they are alive but dazed, Ms. Quiñones slips them into a bag and takesthem into work so they can recover in adesk drawer, then releases them at lunchtime.

''We ask ourselves, what the hell are we doing?'' she said of her quixotic crusade. ''But what's the option, you know? The option is doing nothing, and how could you do that?''

Some cities are taking the first steps towards addressing the problem. In October, Chicago followed Toronto's example by turning out the decorative lights of its tallest buildings during the fall migrations; the lights are out again this spring.

According to Doug Stotz, an ornithologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, darkening a skyscraper reduces its death toll by as much as 80 percent; with more than 40 buildings taking part in the scheme, at least 10,000 birds will be saved, he hopes.

In New York, such a concerted effort remains distant. Instead, the Audubon Society is focused on persuading individual architects and developers to be more sensitiveto the dangers their buildings pose to traveling birds. They ask for nets over windows during migration seasons, fewer exterior cables that can slice up birds that try to circle buildings and less alluring vegetation in lobbies.

Inevitably, the attention of bird campaigners has also come to rest on plans for the site of the World Trade Center, which in its time was the greatest bird killer in Manhattan.

''So many people will have their eyes on the World Trade Center site,'' said E.J. McAdams, executive director of the New York City Audubon chapter. ''The choices they are making there will influence decisions everywhere. So we really want to see this bird issue built into green thinking and general ideas of sustainability.''

MR. MCADAMS spelled out the facts of bird impacts last month in a deposition made by the Audubon Society to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in its call for views on the environmental future of the site. And in what might be a stroke of luck, Marcia Fowle, the chapter's president, is married to Bruce Fowle, the architect who heads New York New Visions, the advisory committee overseeing the entire project.

There has been, however, no need for a domestic education campaign. ''He's reacted without me having to do that,'' Ms. Fowle said. ''He got the picture right away.''

For now, the problem is largely in the hands of early-morning volunteers like Ms. Quiñones. By 7:30 the other morning, the streets of the financial district were crowded with office workers and she was less noticeable as she continued on her erratic route, circling buildings and peering under benches. Soon it was time to go into work and she hadn't found a single bird.

That could be good news, or simply a sign that dead birds had already been scavenged or swept up.

''Maybe we need to get here earlier,'' she said, looking along the cleaned streets and up at the hungry gulls that swoop along the waterfront. ''Maybe we need to camp out.''

Photo: STRAIGHTEN UP, FLY RIGHT -- Kellie Quiñones, on the prowl for birds that have crashed into windows. (Photo by Sam Knight)